What Good is a Scientific Meeting If You Dismiss the Science?

I want to be wrong about this.

Based on the evidence hearing held by the UK Parliament’s Science and Technology Committee last week, it is apparent that there is ample enthusiasm among many in Parliament for changing the UK law against human germline modification to allow what’s called “mitochondrial donation” into fertility clinics. The technique would combine genetic material from two women and one man into a single embryo.

Perhaps naively, I am still shocked by the hubris of some proponents of this technique. I really thought that mounting evidence of the risks to resulting children would encourage more people to question the advisability of this path.

But if the upcoming Parliamentary vote isn’t informed by a more realistic approach, it seems likely that women will be offered this technique by their fertility specialists as early as next year, making the UK the only nation in the world to explicitly allow a form of human inheritable genetic modification. Importantly, this would not be attempted as a closely controlled clinical trial, but in the open market of the fertility industry (with guidance from the HFEA, but no required follow-up).

I sincerely hope that any children born via this technique do not have to pay the price for our desires and curiosity. To reiterate, I really want to be wrong about this. But unlike many at this “evidence hearing,” I cannot so easily dismiss the evidence.

Dr. Edward Morrow, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Sussex, was the sole panelist out of nine to raise a single concern about the state of the science.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by these authors and blogs are theirs and do not necessarily represent that of the Bioethics Research Library and Kennedy Institute of Ethics or Georgetown University.